Why don't you make your own? It's not that hard, and the price of the equipment to do it has fallen dramatically. You need a mini-DV digital video camera, a pentium-3 computer with about 200 GB of disk space and about 500 MB of memory, a firewire or fast USB connection, and a software package (videoway, ulead, video deluxe, or even Microsoft's own Movie Editor, included with Windows XP). We've produced a full training video for VHS and DVD (another software package called myDVD), and found the process time-consuming, but ultimately rewarding, as we were able to explain exactly what we wanted. We now document jobs in progress on video (before, during, after) and give the homeowners a complimentary DVD copy. Of course, on that DVD we also include marketing information and various promotional material, since we know the homeowners will be showing off the DVD to their family and friends! It's another twist to the well-proven method of word-of-mouth marketing.Mark said:Can anyone recommend any videos on faux finishing that would be useful to both contractors and creative diy'ers. I am always looking to expand our lending library at the store and videos or dvd's are a big hit for sure.
Given the low price of disk storage (say 120 GB Maxtor for about $150), it's quite cheap to outfit your system with mega-storage. However, you don't actually need that much. I did my first training video (2 hours 10 minutes) on a system with about 100 GB. If you use MPEG-2 compression, you can fit a 2 hour video into a 4 GB file, which fits nicely on a DVD. If you don't compress, then each minute of DV-video will take up about 180 MB. So having lots of disk room is essential for building up a library of video clips. Once you've done the editing, applied the special effects (fades, overlays, voice-overs, titles, etc.), you can compress the final result.Grumpy said:200 gb of space?! are you sure about that?
If any of my customers thought I was going to give them 2-hour presentations, I'd never even get in the door! That 2-hour thing that I did is a full training video for the DIY homeowner who wants to do the roof installation themselves. For product presentations our maximum length is about 9 minutes.Grumpy said:I didn't say it wasn't feasible. MY home computer has 200 gb but I don't see how you could use all that space since a 15 min mpeg is only 100,000 kb... do you have 2 hour presentations?! Mine are only a few minutes.
I doubt many customers would want to watch my documentary on roofing. As I said in a previous post I prefer flash and powerpoint for my presentations because they are more interactive.
Thanks for the offer! Yes, Tony's the local dealer. How do you know him?I checked out your site and I am guessing your dealer is Tony ? Drop in anytime for some of that good maritime hospitality, we are right on main St so you can't miss the big sign. Old Home Week...that is a blast for the kids. I have some great local links on my site next time your surfing. Take care, look forward to meeting you when your in town again.